Aer Lingus pilots are on strike today following the suspension of seven pilots who refused to comply with new cost-cutting working practices. The management of the company have decided to suspend all operations indefinately from Friday unless they can get 100% agreement from the unions with their Survival Plan - if they can't, they will shut the doors permanently.

Like Sabena, this may be yet another airline destroyed by unions living in cloud cuckoo-land!!

, this may be yet another airline destroyed by unions living in cloud cuckoo-land!!

Nothing against Aer Lingus specifically but hey, but for every airline that goes, the chances of the rest surviving are improved. That's life. I doubt whether there'll be many tears at the likes of BMI or CityXpress if EI shuts down.

IF Aer Lingus were to fold up then there would temporarily be no flights to Amsterdam, Boston, Brussels Intl, Chicago, Dusseldorf, London City, LA, Munich and New York JFK from Dublin. On the other routes there would be monopolies. That may be good news for the likes of bmi, Ryanair, etc. but it's not good news for the general public.

The survival plan was negotiated and voted on by all unions in EI. It allowed for 2026 redundancies, a cut in annual leave, changes in on board service, cuts in cabin crew levels on flights, pay freezes, non-payments of increments, freeze on recruitment amongst others. All unions voted on it and accepted it with the exception of the pilots union. They accepted the pay freezes and the redundancies, but rejected the productivity clause. The major stumbling block for them was the company wanting to cut their rest period to 10 hours.

This was then imposed by the company. When pilots refused to work the new arrangements, they were suspended without pay. This led to the pilots union issuing strike notice for a one day strike on May 30.

In response to this the airline has cancelled its flights on Fri and Sat, Sun is looking a bit dodgy, citing logistical problems with recommencing operations. The airline has also said that it will not pay pilots from midnight tonight until further notice.

Wrt losing €1.5million per day, this is for the days when the airline is not flying. It is rumoured to be profitable at the moment.

You said :"The major stumbling block for them was the company wanting to cut their rest period to 10 hours. ", for what kind of duty time? This can have an imortant impact on security of the flights....
Rgds.
Spitfire

Sabena ... Never to be forgotten (12 years already , what a shame !! )

Aer Lingus is a highly reputable airline. Its service levels are high and to loose the airline would affect the Irish economy greatly, due to the vast number of transatlantic flights that would be lost. Ryanair is simply not a replacement for Aer Lingus. It will be a sad day if this almost historic airline is lost

for those of you who are sweating the possablity that your flight will be cancelled soon if AER LINGUS shuts down,most any airline will take your tickets.that is what always happens in this case.when northwest and air canada had their problems in i think 1998 UNITED and the other airlines flying to europe took the tkts.

and unions dont ruin companies,management ruins companies.i am not pro-union employee,if airlines took care of their employees(southwest)you would never hear about the problems of management not wanting to give raises,or bennifits or.... well you get the point.imo

It's about time an airline stood up to a union without caving in immediately. I hope the pilots feel a bit stupid when they are left with no job and will probably be cited as the main cause of the collapse by the general public.

Donder10 - the cost base is directly attributable to the unions; especially in terms of working practices. If the unions demand that two or more people do a job one person could do, that drives your costs up!

According to EI's CEO, Willie Walsh, it's costing them €2m per day to suspend operations.

Interesting quote:

The Taoiseach [Irish Prime Minister] acknowledged that the survival plan was "absolutely necessary". All workers in the airline had signed up to the agreement and all of them would have to take some pain in making changes.

"I appeal to management and staff to try and find a way out of this because the Aer Lingus balance sheet is still very weak. They haven't got surplus funds and are not in a position to take either internal or external shocks," said Mr Ahern.

25 Donder10
: Apparently EI lost 140 million euros last year and has forecast a 27m deficit this year!

26 Ei 168
: Have they sold off their charter airline Futura? They might get some money for that! Maybe not a lot but surely some amount!

27 Donder10
: Donder10 - the cost base is directly attributable to the unions; especially in terms of working practices. If the unions demand that two or more peopl